The average home in Houston costs about $330,000. The average Houston family can afford just under $200,000. U.S. Rep. Christian Menefee laid out that gap at the city’s third annual Faith and Affordable Housing Summit, and the people in the room had a proposal for closing part of it: build on the land the churches already own.
Houston Councilmember Tiffany Thomas, who chairs the council’s Housing and Affordability Committee, says about 414 acres owned by faith institutions have been identified as potential housing sites. That is enough, the city says, for as many as 1,000 single-family houses and up to 7,200 apartments. “Underutilized land is not necessarily an empty lot,” Thomas said. “It could be your existing facility.”
For Black Houston, the idea starts from a church that has already done it. Boynton Chapel Methodist Church, in the historically Black Third Ward, has built housing on its own property. At New Faith Church, on West Orem and Fuqua, Pastor Andre Lewis and Donna Rickenbacker partnered on a senior development, Mayor Pro Tem Martha Castex-Tatum noted.
Pastor Rudy Rasmus of St. John’s Downtown put the argument plainly: “All of the gaps in services that for-profit entities don’t cover, churches often step into that space. It’s time for the church to step into housing.”
Congregations that want to try it will find some money. Graduates of a Developers Academy run by the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, launching in Houston with $1.2 million in community-impact funding for Congressional District 9, can apply for pre-development grants of $10,000 to $50,000. A $48 million, three-year philanthropic investment called Pathways to Independence is also part of the effort, along with Opportunity Zone tax incentives that pair investors with church land.
Building is only half of it. Dr. Ashley Allen of the Houston Community Land Trust warned that getting a family into a home does not keep them there: “Even if you can get in there, you can’t stay there,” she said, pointing to property taxes and the cost of upkeep. Dr. Ben King of the University of Houston’s Institute for Housing, Homelessness and Health called homelessness a market failure that needs mission-driven development.
The scale is the problem. Even 7,200 apartments is a small dent in a city this size, and a grant of $50,000 does not pay for a building. Houston is asking congregations to do what the market will not, and the city should match that with real money, and with property tax relief for the families who move in, so the first homes built on church land are still affordable when the next summit meets.
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